Town of Slave Lake, Leader surveying public on cannabis

On April 17 the Town of Slave Lake (TOSL) started conducting an ongoing cannabis survey on the TOSL website.
The survey is designed to give council members feedback to help inform changes and updates to bylaws and to garner input on developing new bylaws or policies to respond to the legalization of recreational cannabis.
Chris Brown, Communications Coordinator for the TOSL, says so far 488 people have participated in the online survey. The survey is divided, with a diverse set of answers.
Questions on the survey range from where people should be allowed to smoke, eg: parks and streets to where stores should be located.
Brown says the survey is anonymous in order to receive accurate or true responses people might not have been willing to share otherwise.
The survey is on the TOSL’s website and Facebook page.
Some of the suggestion from the survey include more information or education on the legalization of cannabis and having the locations for selling cannabis in unseen areas.
Tyler Warman, Mayor of Slave Lake, says so far he is fairly happy with the number of responses.
“We are getting a good cross section of responses, good pulse with the community and excited to see results.”
The TOSL’s survey is running until this Friday, May 4. So far it has been the second most successful survey the Town has done (in term of number of responses), next to snow removal.
Alongside the Town’s survey Leader staff have been working on their own survey based on the legalization of cannabis.
Some of the questions asked were people’s general opinion, if you think it will be a good source of revenue and if the laws should be similar or the same as they are for alcohol.
That survey also came back with a variety of answers.
Some people feel the legalization is stupid.
Some say the laws should be the same as they are for alcohol because cannabis can cause a person to become impaired just like alcohol does.
Other people say they think cannabis will be a good source of revenue, and a stream of income the government has been missing.
The surveys both generated a variety of answers, as this is a ‘hot topic.’